Looking for a career on the technical side of the privacy profession? You’ve come to the right place. At the intersection of data privacy and technology sits privacy engineering.
The privacy engineer’s role within an organization is an important one, as technology continues to evolve and organizations must meet every-changing regulatory obligations. Most privacy laws today require some degree of privacy engineering to achieve compliance. That is to say, to comply with privacy laws, technological implementations must be built directly into products and services.
Plus, privacy engineering leads to better overall products and can help build consumer trust.
Let’s take a closer look at the role of a privacy engineer to understand how they make this happen. While we’re at it, we’ll discuss salary, how to become a privacy engineer, and what privacy certifications to consider to help you pursue this career.
A Day in the Life of a Privacy Engineer
As a privacy engineer, your role encompasses a broad range of activities—from conducting technical reviews to implementing privacy by design.
Though your responsibilities may differ based on your experience, the organization and industry you work in, and other factors, here are some day-to-day tasks a privacy engineer might have:
- Build privacy into technology systems and products using privacy by design principles.
- Ensure your organization is adhering to industry standards and privacy regulations. Certain privacy laws, such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), specifically mandate data protection by default.
- Collaborate with design, product, IT, and legal and compliance teams, acting as a translator across teams. For example, you might help lawyers understand the technical side of the work and help software developers understand the legalities behind privacy requirements.
- Build infrastructure supporting data privacy through the right software applications and best practices.
- Analyze and improve software designs or operating procedures from a privacy perspective, identifying any system vulnerabilities and reducing future privacy risk through the implementation of privacy controls.
- Evaluate third-party vendors, understanding the benefits and risks of partnerships.
- Identify and build privacy-enhancing technologies.
Because your work as a privacy engineer impacts several areas across an organization—including user experience, design, software development, data science, system design, IT infrastructure, legal, and more—you may work as part of a larger team that draws on multiple areas of expertise.
Now, let’s take a look at how much you can expect to make as a privacy engineer.
Salary for Privacy Engineer Jobs
The IAPP, formerly known as the International Association of Privacy Professionals, conducted a 2023 Privacy Professionals Salary Survey, which gathered responses from more than 1,400 privacy professionals across the globe.
According to the survey, a privacy engineer can expect to make an average base salary of $135,600 per year. Note, the IAPP considered privacy engineering a grouped role for the purposes of this survey, meaning the average salary encompasses engineers with a wide range of responsibilities.
Other drivers of base salary, like organization size, country of residence, experience, education, and professional privacy certifications should also be considered.
Larger organizations are likely to offer larger salaries, as they tend to employ more highly skilled specialist employees. And privacy professionals in North America earn more than their counterparts in Europe, according to the survey. It was noted that privacy engineers had the greatest variation in base salary, in which those in North America earned 103% more than their European counterparts.
As one would expect, greater knowledge and expertise can also make employees more valuable to an organization, which may lead to higher salaries. Privacy engineers with zero to two years of experience reported earning an average base salary of $80,000 per year, while those with six or more years of experience earned an average base salary of $176,000 per year.
Privacy engineers with a privacy certification from IAPP reported earning a higher salary than those without certifications. Based on survey responses, privacy engineers with no certifications earned an average base salary of $109,200 per year, and those with multiple certifications earned an average base salary of $174,800 per year.
How To Become a Privacy Engineer
Want to improve your understanding of privacy engineering? There are many options to doing so. Higher education is a good place to start, focusing on privacy engineering or law and computer science. Taking on privacy-related projects or roles at your organization can also help you gain experience in the field.
As the field of privacy engineering continues to evolve, a career in privacy engineering is becoming more accessible to professionals with a wide variety of backgrounds and experience. Privacy engineers may transfer from other professions, taking with them transferable skills from security or data governance roles, as well as non-technical skills such as program management.
Privacy certifications, like those offered by the IAPP, can also help you acquire a deep understanding of privacy engineering, and give you a competitive advantage in the field of privacy.
Privacy Engineering Certifications
The IAPP offers globally recognized certifications designed for professionals responsible for managing, analyzing, handling, and accessing sensitive data. Whether you’re just starting out as a privacy engineer, or you're looking to increase your value to your organization, IAPP certification should be considered.
Referring back to the 2013 IAPP Privacy Professionals Salary Survey, nearly 70% of the privacy engineers that responded held at least one IAPP qualification, with 26% having multiple IAPP qualifications.
Of those privacy engineers with a certification, 42% specifically had a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) certification. Given the role of a privacy engineer is heavily focused on technology, many respondents had also earned their Certified Information Privacy Technologist (CIPT) certification.
Here at Privacy Bootcamp, we offer a comprehensive, self-paced e-learning platform for IAPP test preparation. Our affordable courses are developed by privacy and data protection experts who have a deep understanding of the subject matter.
For privacy engineers (or aspiring privacy engineers) interested in our CIPT course, you’ll get:
- An e-textbook study guide with more than 110 guided learning modules
- More than 800 digital flashcards
- A bank of more than 450 practice exam questions
- More than 20 digital exercises
- A quick reference “cheat sheet” that highlights the important points of each study module
- A live-exam environment that’s modeled after the actual exam software
Conclusion: What Does a Privacy Engineer Do?
Privacy engineering combines data privacy and technology, with a focus on building privacy directly into products and services.
Because most privacy laws today require some degree of privacy engineering, and there are fees and fines associated with privacy missteps, the demand for privacy engineers continues to grow. With this demand comes a competitive salary, which could also be impacted by your location, years of experience, and the certifications you hold.
Privacy engineers may come from different backgrounds with different skill sets. But if you have a passion for privacy, technology, and a willingness and desire to learn, a career as a privacy engineer may be right for you.
